<p>Okay, you caught me. I lied. There is no huge twist. There's not even a little twist. This topic is just like the hundreds of others on this board. Disappointed? Me too. Since you're already here though, you might as well score my essay. Come on, it'll be funnish. </p>
<p>Is identity something people are born with or given, or is it something people create for themselves? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations.</p>
<p>Identity is constantly changing. It is not something innate, but something that we fashion for ourselves and that we are constantly honing. History has provided us with countless examples of the identity's penchant for change.</p>
<p>Perhaps the most famous (or infamous) indication of identity's ability to change is the case of Benedict Arnold. At the beginning of the Revolutionary War, he was a loyal soldier in the American army, an essential part of his identity. By the end, he had changed his identity and become a British sympathizer.</p>
<p>Benedict Arnold changed his identity out of free will, but sometimes one's identity shift is instigated by outside forces. One such case is that of Winston, the protagonist of George Orwell's Nineteen-Eighty Four. At the beginning of the novel, Winston is against the totalitarian regime that is in place. His misgivings are found out and he is put into prison. It is there that his identity is changed. Through the means of brutal torture, his mind, and his identity, is dramatically altered.</p>
<p>A final, more lighthearted example can be derived from my own life. As a child, I hated mushrooms. I would rather have gone without food than be forced to eat the dreaded fungus. Today, I consider mushrooms to be a delicious staple of my diet. That part of my identity did a complete 180.</p>
<p>These examples very clearly illustrate that identity is not something that we are born with, nor even something that we acquire as time goes on. Identity is the essence of who we are, and that essence is ever-changing.</p>